September 9,2017
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Bed Sherman has made some irresponsible remarks about the Status of the Duran-line.He is contradicting the democratic principles of liberal democracy in an effort to legitimatise the colonial travesty of the 21st century. He is unwittingly taking sides with Pakistan that harbours the world 20 most lethal and notorious terrorist groups US designate in the country. Pakistan unleashes hundreds of dangerous terrorists groups on Afghanistan to kill Afghans and American alike. He should be ashamed of himself for abusing his own status and position as US senator. Such lousy remarks will alienate the the Afghan nation for under mining their cause of irredentism. I suggest he steadies a bit about the history and culture of the Afghan nation and its people. He seems like an ignorant person under the Pakistani influence and possibly stooge. The people of Afghanistan strongly condemn his remarks as utterly nonsense and warn him to either shut up or follow the path of his European counterpart Czarnecky who has called for the overthrow of the Durand-line’ . It is time that hard decisions are taken, and the historical mistake known as the Durand Line is set right’,Czarnecki warns that Pakistan will continue to interfere and destabilize areas across the Durand Line, with the objective of retaining control over it as it borders Afghanistan.
He suggests that there is an immediate need for the west to take a hard look at this artificial border, and restore the natural and historical frontier between these two countries for the sake of peace in the region.
“Balochistan and portions of the Pashtun-dominated tribal areas of Pakistan that were forcefully taken away and merged into British India need to be restored to their earlier status as the sovereign territory of Afghanistan,” Czarnecky said. Bed Sherman owes Afghans an apology for making such a blunder.

KARACHI: Though keeping, rearing, selling, and eating pig is prohibited in Pakistan; export of swine meat (pork) from Pakistan to Afghanistan remained significant in the recent years.

Latest data by State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) revealed that around $2.8 million worth of fresh, chilled or frozen swine meat was exported by Pakistan in the nine months (July-March) of Fiscal Year 2015-16 (FY16) and about $447000 worth of swine meat exported in the nine months of FY17.

Afghanistan remained one of the major destinations of Pakistani pork as $2.4 million worth of swine meat in FY16 and $111000 worth of swine meat in FY17 was exported to the neighboring country.

Industry sources claimed that the swine meat is being exported from Pakistan to Afghanistan to cater for the dietary requirements of more than 13,000 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops who are training local forces in Afghanistan. A new NATO-led mission (called Resolute Support) to train, advise and assist the Afghan security forces and institutions was launched in January 2015.

It is to be noted that thousands of pigs are found in the protected national park areas around Murree, Ayubia, Azad Kashmir and Islamabad. The Pakistani pigs are also called Eurasian wild boars.

However, sources claimed that Americans and other non-Muslims do not eat wild boar meat as they only prefer commercially-raised pork, thus it is a probability that there is hidden pig farming in Pakistan.

The sources claimed that many tones of pig meat are brought to Lahore from Rawalpindi and the authorities are fully aware of the situation but no action has been taken yet.

However, an official of All Pakistan Meat Exporters & Processor Association (APME&PA) categorically denied involvement of any of the association’s members in the export of swine meat.

He was totally unaware whether the export of swine meat is legal from Pakistan or not. For the record, the export of swine meat is legal in Pakistan. According to the Statuary Regulatory Order (SRO) 344(1)/2016 issued by Ministry of Commerce, swine meat can be exported under HS code 0103.0000, 0203.0000, and 4103.3000.

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/pakistan-exports-pork-worth-millions-of-rupees-to-afghanistan/feed/0Let’s face it By: Faheem Nazimihttp://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/lets-face-it-by-faheem-nazimi/
http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/lets-face-it-by-faheem-nazimi/#respondThu, 07 Sep 2017 16:58:24 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1196September 9, 2017
Many years back I read in a British journal revealing their top level secret talks with high ranking Taliban leaders who were quoted to have admittedly said on condition of anonymity that they would like to have the US presence in Afghanistan as a deterrence against Iran. This belief is shared overwhelmingly by Afghans who see the US presence in Afghanistan as vital for Afghan survival and Independence and prosperity in the wake of Pakistan’s undeclared war of aggression and dominance on Afghanistan.Pakistan is currently engaged in a war of terror against Afghanistan causing enormous threat to the region and beyond. It has destabilized Afghanistan and the region. They unleash Taliban and other terrorist groups such as Dayesh on daily basis on Afghanistan who operate with Pakistan’s material and political assistance as well as Intel support from their safe heavens in Pakistan. Pak army is on the other hand bent on crushing the independence movement of Baluchistan and trying to subjugate the Pashtun tribal resistance through bloodshed and atrocities undermining their sovereign rights to self-determination by committing human rights abuses in tribal areas. Panjabi continued occupation of Afghan legitimate territory dominated by Pashtuns in the tribal area and Baluchistan is unacceptable and the travesty of the 21st century.There is an immediate need for the west to take a hard look at this artificial border, and restore the natural and historical frontier between these two countries for the sake of peace in the region.
Balochistan and portions of the Pashtun-dominated tribal areas of Pakistan that were forcefully taken away and merged into British India need to be restored to their earlier status as the sovereign territory of Afghanistan.
]]>http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/lets-face-it-by-faheem-nazimi/feed/0By: Fahim Nazmi -Trump can win the war in Afghanistan,http://dawatmedia.com/articles/by-fahim-nazmi-trump-can-win-the-war-in-afghanistan/
http://dawatmedia.com/articles/by-fahim-nazmi-trump-can-win-the-war-in-afghanistan/#respondTue, 29 Aug 2017 03:07:52 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1157Trump can win the war in Afghanistan, provided he mobolizes the tribes on both sides of the Durand-line and over throw the present status quo, by curving out the Afghan historical land of Tribal and Baluchestan restoring it back to Afghanistan as its sovereign territory and thus ensure freedom of the Pashtun and Baluch and US resupply line by seizing Gowader port. In other words the strategic condition on the ground must change and harsh realities need to be embraced and tough decisions of radical nature is required on the US part, If they really want to deal with Pakistan. Counter the Talibanism and terrorism with National freedom movements of the Pashtun and Baluchis as a real option, If terrorism is to be destroyed and peace and stability restored in the region.i The Bush administration gave Pakistan $12.4 billion in aid, and the Obama administration forked over $21 billion. These incentives did not make Pakistan more amenable to cutting off support for the Afghan Taliban. The U.S. cannot win in Afghanistan as long as Pakistan controls the resupply of US troops and regulates the battle tempo through its support of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the other Islamic terrorist groups it nurtures. And make no mistake, Pakistan does not want the U.S. to win because it views Afghanistan as a client state.
]]>http://dawatmedia.com/articles/by-fahim-nazmi-trump-can-win-the-war-in-afghanistan/feed/0The problem in Afghanistan is Pakistan – By: LAWRENCE SELLINhttp://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/1120/
http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/1120/#respondThu, 17 Aug 2017 10:41:22 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1120The problem in Afghanistan is Pakistan LAWRENCE SELLIN 4:06 PM 07/07/2017 Regarding a new strategy for Afghanistan, even Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States says that a tougher approach needs to be adopted toward his country: The Bush administration gave Pakistan $12.4 billion in aid, and the Obama administration forked over $21 billion. These incentives did not make Pakistan more amenable to cutting off support for the Afghan Taliban. The U.S. cannot win in Afghanistan as long as Pakistan controls the resupply of our troops and regulates the battle tempo through its support of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the other Islamic terrorist groups it nurtures. And make no mistake, Pakistan does not want the U.S. to win because it views Afghanistan as a client state. In addition to reducing foreign aid to a trickle, Pakistan has other potential pain points. Recently introduced by Reps. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Rick Nolan (D-MN), but quickly tabled by a limp-wristed Republican House, HR 3000 sought to revoke Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally (MNNA) granted by President George W. Bush in 2004 to encourage “Islama-bad” to support the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda. As a MNNA country, Pakistan became “eligible for priority delivery of defense material, an expedited arms sale process, and a U.S. loan guarantee program, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports. It can also stockpile U.S. military hardware, participate in defense research and development programs, and be sold more sophisticated weaponry.” Pakistan returned that favor by allowing the Taliban to rest, regroup and resupply inside its territory and played host and protector to Osama bin Laden from 2005 until his death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs in 2011. Even the Islam-friendly Obama Administration was forced to withhold $300 million in military reimbursements because Pakistan was not taking adequate action against the Haqqani network. Those facts, plus the plethora of other violent radical Islamic groups currently operating in and from Pakistan could justify declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism. Probably the greatest of all potential Pakistani pain points is ethnic separatism. Pakistan is not so much a nation, but a collection of simultaneous arguments, an artificial political entity created by the British during the partition of India, founded entirely on the ideology of Islam and composed primarily of five ethnic groups that never coexisted – the Bengalis, Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Baloch. The “Islamization” program initiated by Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) was specifically designed to suppress ethnic separatism and make Pakistan the global Sunni leader, an effort that eventually led to the proliferation of Islamic terrorist groups within its borders. If Pakistan continues to use the Taliban and the Haqqani network as instruments of its foreign policy in Afghanistan, the exploitation of ethnic separatism within Pakistan, such as in Balochistan, remains an option. That is, fight an insurgency with an insurgency. Another consideration is to challenge the Durand Line, the arbitrary 1896 border drawn by British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand, whereby Pashtun lands currently in Pakistan could be incorporated into Afghanistan to prevent Pakistan from using its Pashtun population as Taliban cannon fodder. Clearly, rounding up the usual collection of incentives has not changed Pakistan’s strategy. It is time to change ours. Admittedly, Pakistan will respond negatively to such an approach, but even the worst case scenario will only hasten an outcome that is inevitable if the U.S. continues its present strategy in Afghanistan. That is, a humiliating defeat, a return to pre-9/11 conditions in Afghanistan and the exclusion of the U.S. as a significant player in South Asia for generations. The choice is simple – either recognize that Pakistan perpetuates the war in Afghanistan and do something about it or get out now. Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired US Army Reserve colonel, an IT command and control subject matter expert, trained in Arabic and Kurdish, and a veteran of Afghanistan, northern Iraq and a humanitarian mission to West Africa. He receives email
]]>http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/1120/feed/0Taliban Leader Feared Pakistan Before He Was Killedhttp://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/taliban-leader-feared-pakistan-before-he-was-killed/
http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/taliban-leader-feared-pakistan-before-he-was-killed/#respondThu, 10 Aug 2017 20:52:17 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1108

The vehicle that was carrying Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, the Taliban leader, was destroyed by a drone strike last year in Ahmad Wal, Pakistan.

AUGUST 9, 2017

He was on his way home from a secret visit to Iran in May 2016, driving across a remote stretch of southwestern Pakistan, when he called his brother and relatives to prepare them for his death.

“He knew something was happening,” a former Taliban commander, who is close to Mullah Mansour’s inner circle, said in an interview. “That’s why he was telling his family members what to do and to stay united.”

It is rare for a Taliban commander to sit for an interview, but this one spoke on the condition that his name or location not be made public, because he had recently defected from the insurgents’ ranks and his life was under threat.

His account offered previously unreported insights into the final hours of Mullah Mansour’s life, and why and how he was killed, revealing a dangerously widening rift with his Pakistani sponsors.

The account was complemented and supported in interviews with two senior Afghan officials who have conducted their own investigations into the Taliban leader’s death — Haji Agha Lalai, presidential adviser and deputy governor of Kandahar; and Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief of Kandahar Province.

More than a year after the event, Afghans on both sides of the war and a growing number of Western security analysts say that Pakistan most likely engineered Mullah Mansour’s death to remove a Taliban leader it no longer trusted.

“Pakistan was making very strong demands,” the former commander said. “Mansour was saying you cannot force me on everything. I am running the insurgency, doing the fighting and taking casualties and you cannot force us.”

After Mullah Mansour’s death, Mawlawi Haibatullah Akhundzada, an Islamic cleric with no military experience, was selected as leader of the Taliban. Yet Afghanistan has seen little reprieve with his death, as hard-liners within the movement took over and redoubled their offensive to take power.

There is little chance of anyone speaking out, the former commander said. “Ninety percent of the Taliban blame the Pakistanis,” he said. “But they cannot say anything. They are scared.”

Mullah Mansour had been intent on expanding his sources of support as he prepared an ambitious offensive across eight provinces in Afghanistan last year, they said.

He relied on Pakistan’s Intelligence Service and donors from Arab gulf states, as well as Afghan drug lords, for the main financing of the Taliban, but he was also seeking weapons and other support from Iran, and even Russia. He met officials from both countries on his last visit to Iran.

Mullah Mansour’s outreach to Iran was also aimed at getting the Taliban out from under Pakistan’s thumb, according to his former associate and Afghan officials, so he could maneuver to run the war, but also negotiate peace, on his own terms. That was where his differences with Pakistan had grown sharpest.

Mullah Mansour had resisted orders from Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, to destroy infrastructure — schools, bridges and roads — to increase the cost of the war for the Afghan government. He opposed the promotion of Pakistan’s hard-line protégé Sirajuddin Haqqani to be his deputy, and he had dodged Pakistan’s demands to push its agenda in negotiations.

Critically, he wanted to devolve more power to regional Taliban commanders, allowing them to raise their own funds and make their own decisions, in order to own the Afghan nationalist cause and loosen Pakistan’s control over the insurgency.

Others with close knowledge of the Taliban, including the former Taliban finance minister and peace mediator Agha Jan Motasim, said that Mullah Mansour was ready to negotiate and had sent top representatives to successive meetings in Pakistan.

While on his way to Iran, Mullah Mansour had stopped in the Girdi Jungle refugee camp, a hub of Taliban activity in Pakistan, where he called on Taliban commanders and elders to gather for a meeting.

“Ten days before he was killed he sent messages to villages and to commanders asking them to share their views on peace talks,” said General Raziq, the police chief of Kandahar Province, a fierce opponent of the Taliban, who knows the movement well.

He says that Mullah Mansour was looking for new protectors as his disagreements with Pakistan were growing.

Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour had been intent on expanding his sources of support as he prepared an offensive across eight provinces in Afghanistan last year.

VIA ASSOCIATED PRESS

“There were reports that he may have wanted to escape,” General Raziq said. “We knew one month before that Mansour was ready to make peace.”

General Raziq also said Mullah Mansour feared assassination by Pakistan. “He told his relatives that ‘relations with Pakistan were very bad and they might kill me.’”

The day he was killed, Mullah Mansour was alone.

The trip to and from Iran was one he had taken before. He always traveled on a Pakistani passport, under a fake name, with the full knowledge of Pakistani intelligence.

His fake identity, Muhammad Wali, was known in intelligence circles, according to a former Afghan intelligence chief, who did not want to be identified while discussing sensitive aspects of relations with neighboring countries.

This time, however, unusually, when Mullah Mansour reached the Pakistani side of the border with Iran, 300 extra guards were posted at the crossing and along the highway. Mullah Mansour was detained inside the border post.

He emerged after two hours, and climbed into a taxi about 9 a.m. for the eight-hour drive to Quetta. Traveling alone in an ordinary taxi was typical of the Taliban leader: low-profile, but at the same time casually confident in a familiar terrain.

The Taliban had freedom of movement in the border regions with the tacit agreement of Pakistani security forces, the former Taliban commander explained. Anyone armed with a Kalashnikov, or just a walkie-talkie, could pass where ordinary civilians could not, he said.

But his reception at the border had worried Mullah Mansour.

He called his brother and spoke to him and family members for 45 minutes, the former Taliban commander said. He also called a close friend in Quetta and asked him to go around to his brother’s house with a message to expect guests that night.

He was doing what is known in Islamic Law as “wasiyat,” passing on his last wishes and taking leave.

“He was very worried about his safety,” said Mr. Lalai, the Afghan presidential adviser, who also knew of the long telephone call. “He had a conversation with his family and he gave last instructions to educate his children, on his money, most of the talk was instructions in the case of his death.”

Six hours into the journey, near the small town of Ahmad Wal, where the road runs just 20 miles from the Afghan border, Hellfire missiles fired by an American drone tore into the car, first hitting the front and then striking the body.

Workers farming watermelons nearby rushed to the burning wreck and shoveled dirt on the flames but could not save the men inside, General Raziq said.

Members of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps arrived suspiciously fast.

“His car was followed,” said General Raziq, who conducted his own investigation into the strike. “The Frontier Corps were following him, and within five minutes of him being hit they reached him, with the media.”

The Pakistani police showed journalists Mullah Mansour’s passport, undamaged, beside the charred wreck. Afghan officials and Western security analysts say it was most likely planted there after the blast since everything else was burned beyond recognition.

For many in the Taliban, Mullah Mansour’s death represented a devastating betrayal by their longtime patron and sponsor, Pakistan, that has split and demoralized the ranks.

About two dozen senior commanders from Mullah Mansour’s Pashtun tribe have defected to the Afghan government or moved into Afghanistan in fear of further retribution from Pakistan.

The Taliban commander compared the strike with Pakistan’s detention of senior Taliban commanders who dared to reach out to the Kabul government, like Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was detained in a joint United States-Pakistani raid in 2010. American officials welcomed his detention but later it emerged that he had been supporting peace overtures with Kabul.

The strike against Mullah Mansour was the first time a top Afghan Taliban leader had been killed inside Pakistan, which has provided a sanctuary for Taliban leaders throughout their 16-year insurgency against Afghanistan.

Pakistan has an undeniable image problem, in part because it does not have able advocates operating internally and externally that could influence an almost entirely negative narrative. This is not a country utterly wracked by terrorism and the majority of people lead peaceful and industrious lives. There are equally undeniable parts of the country that are dangerous and best avoided and there are ongoing operations against terrorists in the mountainous north and parts of Punjab.

We have few friends internationally that are prepared to speak up for us, but one such is Robin Raphel, a former assistant secretary of state for South Asia. She was to the fore during a seminar held at the Aspen Institute in California on futures for Afghanistan. Pakistan had just been sidelined by Hamdullah Mohib, the Afghan ambassador to Washington, who urged the international community to stop supporting Pakistan, and cautioned that it was becoming a state that supported extremism and terrorism as an active element of its foreign policy. The new cadre of military officers believed in terrorism as an ideology, quoth he.

Considering that Mr Mohib speaks for his government in the US, this was a serious allegation. It was immediately countered by Ms Raphel who knew a thing or two about Pakistan and said that the country was influenced by the fact that the Trump administration had yet to iterate its own policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, and a lack of clarity on all sides helped nobody and resolved nothing. It is notable that our own ambassador had decided to be absent from the moot because of a distinctly poor public reception at a similar event and it was left to Ms Raphel to go bat for us. It is a parlous state of affairs indeed if we have to rely on a foreign but friendly voice to speak up for us. The complete failure of the current administration to craft a positive narrative was laid bare for all to see. Lucky we are to have Ms Raphel. We look forward to hearing a Pakistani voice doing the same in the foreseeable future.

Regarding a new strategy for Afghanistan, even Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States says that a tougher approach needs to be adopted toward his country:
The Bush administration gave Pakistan $12.4 billion in aid, and the Obama administration forked over $21 billion. These incentives did not make Pakistan more amenable to cutting off support for the Afghan Taliban.
The U.S. cannot win in Afghanistan as long as Pakistan controls the resupply of our troops and regulates the battle tempo through its support of the Taliban, the Haqqani network and the other Islamic terrorist groups it nurtures.
And make no mistake, Pakistan does not want the U.S. to win because it views Afghanistan as a client state.
In addition to reducing foreign aid to a trickle, Pakistan has other potential pain points.
Recently introduced by Reps. Ted Poe (R-TX) and Rick Nolan (D-MN), but quickly tabled by a limp-wristed Republican House, HR 3000 sought to revoke Pakistan’s status as a major non-NATO ally (MNNA) granted by President George W. Bush in 2004 to encourage “Islama-bad” to support the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda.
As a MNNA country, Pakistan became “eligible for priority delivery of defense material, an expedited arms sale process, and a U.S. loan guarantee program, which backs up loans issued by private banks to finance arms exports. It can also stockpile U.S. military hardware, participate in defense research and development programs, and be sold more sophisticated weaponry.”
Pakistan returned that favor by allowing the Taliban to rest, regroup and resupply inside its territory and played host and protector to Osama bin Laden from 2005 until his death at the hands of U.S. Navy SEALs in 2011.
Even the Islam-friendly Obama Administration was forced to withhold $300 million in military reimbursements because Pakistan was not taking adequate action against the Haqqani network.
Those facts, plus the plethora of other violent radical Islamic groups currently operating in and from Pakistan could justify declaring it a state sponsor of terrorism.
Probably the greatest of all potential Pakistani pain points is ethnic separatism.
Pakistan is not so much a nation, but a collection of simultaneous arguments, an artificial political entity created by the British during the partition of India, founded entirely on the ideology of Islam and composed primarily of five ethnic groups that never coexisted – the Bengalis, Punjabis, Pashtuns, Sindhis and Baloch.
The “Islamization” program initiated by Pakistan President Zia-ul-Haq (1977-1988) was specifically designed to suppress ethnic separatism and make Pakistan the global Sunni leader, an effort that eventually led to the proliferation of Islamic terrorist groups within its borders.
If Pakistan continues to use the Taliban and the Haqqani network as instruments of its foreign policy in Afghanistan, the exploitation of ethnic separatism within Pakistan, such as in Balochistan, remains an option. That is, fight an insurgency with an insurgency.
Another consideration is to challenge the Durand Line, the arbitrary 1896 border drawn by British diplomat Sir Mortimer Durand, whereby Pashtun lands currently in Pakistan could be incorporated into Afghanistan to prevent Pakistan from using its Pashtun population as Taliban cannon fodder.
Clearly, rounding up the usual collection of incentives has not changed Pakistan’s strategy. It is time to change ours.
Admittedly, Pakistan will respond negatively to such an approach, but even the worst case scenario will only hasten an outcome that is inevitable if the U.S. continues its present strategy in Afghanistan. That is, a humiliating defeat, a return to pre-9/11 conditions in Afghanistan and the exclusion of the U.S. as a significant player in South Asia for generations.
The choice is simple – either recognize that Pakistan perpetuates the war in Afghanistan and do something about it or get out now.
Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D. is a retired US Army Reserve colonel, an IT command and control subject matter expert, trained in Arabic and Kurdish, and a veteran of Afghanistan, northern Iraq and a humanitarian mission to West Africa. He receives email

]]>http://dawatmedia.com/afghanistan/the-problem-in-afghanistan-is-pakistan/feed/0By: Faheem Nazimi-Pakistan uses Islamic State for opium-fueled ethnic cleansinghttp://dawatmedia.com/articles/by-faheem-nazimi-pakistan-uses-islamic-state-for-opium-fueled-ethnic-cleansing/
http://dawatmedia.com/articles/by-faheem-nazimi-pakistan-uses-islamic-state-for-opium-fueled-ethnic-cleansing/#respondThu, 06 Jul 2017 11:08:09 +0000http://dawatmedia.com/?p=1013by LAWRENCE SELLIN, PHD July 3, 2017
They are the modern-day Einsatzgruppen, the paramilitary SS death squads, who travelled in the wake of the German armies and killed so-called “undesirable” elements like Jews and Gypsies as well as partisans fighting against Nazi Germany.
Lashkar-e-Khorasan or “Army of Khorasan” is an Islamic State affiliate in Balochistan, where Khorasan represents parts of Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
It is not so much an army, nor are they Regents of large swathes of territory, but a gaggle of street thugs restricted to a barren area of south-west Pakistan, who kill in the name of religion just as the Nazis killed in the name of National Socialism.
Lashkar-e-Khorasan is part of a narco-terrorist network, fueled by the opium trade and operates with the tacit approval of the Pakistan government.
Historically, the motivation of the countless number of home-grown Pakistani Islamic terrorist groups has been the Sunni-Shia conflict, but recognizing the usefulness of proxies, the Pakistan government nurtured and deployed them to quell nationalist and ethnic unrest domestically, while incorporating them as an element of its foreign policy, particularly for attacks against India and Afghanistan.
Lashkar-e-Khorasan is not the only Islamic State affiliate operating in Balochistan, a list that includes Jundullah, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi al-Almi and Jammat-ul-Ahrar, the last two having claimed responsibility for the October 24, 2016, attack on the Balochistan police training college in Quetta, killing 61 cadets and injuring more than 165 others.
The designated role of Lashkar-e-Khorasan in south-west Balochistan has been to kill members of the secular independence movement and cleanse Balochistan of Sufi Zikris, Shia Hazaras, Hindus, Christians, Ahmadis, Sikhs or anyone else who refuses to convert to the extreme form of Sunni Islam.
But the web of relationships among the Pakistan government, Lashkar-e-Khorasan and drug trafficking is more complex.
The leader of Lashkar-e-Khorasan is Mullah Shahmir Bizenjo, a resident of Turbat and son of Aziz Bizenjo, whose cousin is National Party President and Senator Hasil Bizenjo, currently Pakistan’s Minister for Ports and Shipping.
According to The Daily Beast, one of the drug world’s most notorious opium traffickers, also from Turbat, is Imam Bizenjo aka Imam Bheel, a National Party financier, whose son, Yaqoob Bizenjo, served as a member of the Pakistan National Assembly until 2013.
That region of south-west Pakistan is a major transit point for opium originating in Afghanistan reaching Gwadar and other ports on the Makran coast for worldwide distribution, all under the supervision of a relative of the Lashkar-e-Khorasan leader.
It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that Lashkar-e-Khorasan is well-funded and has the support of the Pakistan Frontier Corps, who have reportedly provided it operating bases and whose soldiers have acted as reinforcements for Lashkar-e-Khorasan when it has been under assault by Baloch secular nationalists.
It is counterproductive for the U.S. to continue to give Pakistan billions of dollars in aid, while it works against American interests in Afghanistan and supports murderous jihadi criminals within its own borders. It also makes no sense for the Central Intelligence Agency to fund directly Pakistani terrorist groups simply for pinprick attacks on Iran.
U.S. support for the secular Balochistan independence movement is a wiser alternative to help stop the spread of narco-terrorism and drive a non-Islamist wedge into a critical region of South Asia.
Iran has its own restive Baloch region. Ethnic separatism can be a potent lever against nations like Iran and Pakistan, who use Islamic terrorism as instruments of their domestic and international policies.
That is not an even strategy. It is basic military tactics. Go for Iran’s and Pakistan’s right and left flank, respectively.
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